Marcin Gortat, of the LA Clippers, dribbles into JaVale McGee, of the Los Angeles Lakers ,during the first half of a NBA preseason game at Honda Center on Oct. 6. Gortat said the team isn’t putting too much stock in its 5-0 preseason record. (Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images)

The Clippers start over Wednesday when they host the Denver Nuggets on opening night at Staples Center.

“We’re not getting excited about the results in preseason,” veteran center Marcin Gortat said before practice Saturday at the Clippers Training Center, noting that two of their preseason victories were against objectively inferior teams from Australia and Israel.

And so the Clippers will spend the next few days filing down their flaws.

“We’ve just got to get sharper,” Coach Doc Rivers said after the Clippers put a bow on the organization’s first perfect preseason. “The greatest thing about this team is that each day, we literally should be better because we’re so new together, and we’re still learning.”

In particular, Rivers said he hopes his squad heads back in the right direction on the break.

“We kind of lost our transition game,” Rivers said Saturday. “Even though we ran and got a ton of open-court layups, I think our spacing, as each game (went on), we started creeping in more and more. Coming out of the gate, I thought it was beautiful how we were playing, and then each game, we got worse at it.”

In each of their first two preseason victories, against the Sydney Kings and the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Clippers had 25 fast-break points. In win No. 3 against the LeBron-less Lakers, they had 10 fast-break points, then 11 against the Denver Nuggets. Finally, against Israel’s Maccabi Haifa, the Clippers again had 25 – but that was in an entirely lopsided 124-76 victory.

Beyond refining their transition, there are many other important areas of focus on Rivers’ syllabus.

“The key still will be can we rebound well enough? How do we finish games? Can we stop scoring droughts? And defensively, how good will we be?” Rivers said. “If we do all those things well, then we’re going to be a great basketball team. If we do half of them, then … I don’t know what that translates into.”

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The Clippers’ long-range marksmen can get sharper too. Collectively, they shot 30.4 percent (42 for 138) from behind the arc in those five preseason contests, including just 24.2 percent (8 for 33) against Maccabi Haifa.

“I think we have a lot of (outside shooting),” Rivers said. “Now we have to get some of them to go in.”

BOBAN ‘UNSTOPPABLE’

After spending the past month guarding Boban Marjanovic in practice, Gortat has insider’s knowledge about stopping him: You won’t.

“I mean, Boban is unstoppable,” Gortat said of the Clippers’ popular 7-foot-3 backup center, who averaged 12 points in 10.2 minutes this preseason. “We’ve gone at it in practice and my trick is don’t let him get to the paint. If he gets to the paint, I foul him, that’s all I can do. You can’t block him, you can’t stop him from inside, he’s just too big. He’s too big and just too physically skilled, so you’ve just literally got to foul him, wrap him around and don’t (let) him lift the ball.”

And even then, Marjanovic wins. A guy who shot 14 for 17 from the free-throw line in the preseason is hardly hack-able for defensive purposes.

“At the end of the day, you’ve got five fouls and you’re going home,” added Gortat, who said he’s really gained an appreciation for Boban’s skill set.

“I’m just surprised how incredibly skilled he is for his size and incredibly smart,” said Gortat, who averaged nine points in 18 minutes through four preseason games. “People have a tendency to look (at the) physical aspect of him, they’re thinking he’s a little funny. But it ain’t funny when he’s out there on the court and you’ve got to guard him.

“You’ve got to be really focused on the guy to guard him right because otherwise he’s going to get you 20 (points) and 12 (rebounds) in eight minutes. That’s what he did, he showed up every game, he checked in for eight minutes, and he got double-double.

“I mean … that’s better than Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.”

ARTIS SIGNED, WAIVED

A day after announcing they signed 6-foot-7 guard Jamel Artis, the Clippers said in a statement Saturday that they waived Artis.

Mirjam Swanson covers the Clippers and the NBA for the Southern California News Group. Previously, she wrote about LeBron James and the rest of the Dream Team at the 2004 Olympics (where, yes, they took bronze) and Tiger Woods’ last (for now) major championship. Most recently, she’s covered city government, education and the occasional bear in a backyard.